Classe Tous Risques, 1960.
Directed by Claude Sautet.
Starring Lino Ventura, Sandra Milo, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marcel Dalio and Michel Ardan.
SYNOPSIS:
On the run with two small children, how long can criminal Abel Davos outrun those in pursuit and his destiny?
The same year cinema was left Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard’s revolutionary tour de force, its star Jean-Paul Belmondo found himself yet again on the wrong side of the law in Claude Sautet’s Classe Tous Risques; this time swapping the pursuit of Jean Seberg for Sandra Milo.
Sautet’s Classe Tous Risques’ ageing protagonist features shades of Jean Gabin and Roger Duchesne in Jacque Becker’s Pas au Grisbi and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob le Flambeur – two seminal French gangster films of the 1950s.
Alongside Francois Truffaut who was made to look decidedly human in 1960 following his seminal 1959 film Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows), Classe Tous Risques alongside Shoot the Pianist falls short of Melville’s 1956 classic.Whilst neither surpass the said benchmark, both are reputable and classic entries in the French gangster canon, each surviving the high points of past and present.
Not dissimilar to its brethren, Classe Tous Risques is crafted with a self-knowing consciousness; choreographed in moments to maximise upon the essence of cool that the films and characters of this era of French cinema exude. Classe Tous Risques alongside Shoot the Pianist and Bob le Flambeur possesses a dreamlike quality, in which events, actions or lines of dialogue play out or sound as only they can on the screen.
In contrast to Scorsese’s use of voiceover in Goodfellas and Casino, the words of Classe Tous Risques’ objective narrator are less matter of fact and for want of a better word more poetic. As playful as it is, Sautet’s title character’s confrontation with his fate and destiny conjures up tragic undertones. Even in the school of cool, one cannot outrun his fate whatever the pre-determined outcome.
Sautet creates the drama out of a game a of cat and mouse that instead of building to the crime Classe Tous Risques is the story of the fallout of the opening heist. It opens with a frenetic pace that doesn’t allow us a moment to stop to catch our breath. Easing his foot off the accelerator Sautet teases with the dramatic, instead choosing to focus on the story of his characters becoming acquainted and coming to trust one another, and the suspicions of the truth behind the veil of lies they speak.
Sautet creates a compelling drama out of the fallout of the characters as friends become adversaries and sacrifices are made in the name of love and friendship.
Fast forward half a decade and Sautet’s last two films Un Coeur en Hiver and Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud suggest that narrative or thematic interests habitually clung to his creative impulse.
In either of those films, what resonates are the relationships or the characters – the man who has no emotion or the intimate and touching relationship between Nelly and Arnaud. Classe Tous Risques is first and foremost a crime movie, but what Sautet crafts is a film that will be remembered as a story of one man trying to outrun his fate, whose identity os one of a partner in crime, father, husband and friend.
From his second feature film to his penultimate and final film, the thread that connects theses three films is that they are each affectionate stories of intimacy between characters. Therein Classe Tous Risques is a drama in the shell of a gangster movie that is not far removed from Un Coeur en Hiver and Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud, separated by only the thin veil of genre
With the passage of time Classe Tous Risques’ cool air remains intoxicating, and the assuredness of it’s characters and the magnetic Ventura and Belmondo and the charming Sandra Milo makes Sautet’s early gangster drama-thriller is compelling if not essential viewing.
Classe Tous Risques is released on dual format edition DVD and Blu-Ray courtesy of the BFI today.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Paul Risker is a freelance writer and contributor to Flickering Myth.
Originally published February 24, 2014. Updated April 11, 2018.
